42 selected for Mandela Washington Fellowship

by Staff reporter

15 Jun 2018 at 07:29hrs | Views

EIGHT Bulawayo youths are among 42 young Zimbabweans selected for this year's Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders - the flagship programme of the Young African Leaders Initiative (Yali).

The group is expected to leave for the United States on Tuesday on a six to 12 weeks leadership training programme.

Yali empowers young people through academic coursework, leadership training, and networking.

The fellowship provides up to 700 outstanding young leaders from sub-Saharan Africa the opportunity to hone their skills at a US higher education institution.

One of the beneficiaries, Candice Mbaita, who is a radiographer said she hoped to apply her newly-acquired skills to bridge the existing gap in the country's health service delivery, particularly between rural and urban communities.

"I am a radiographer and currently doing community mobile work in the field of radiology. I will go out to rural communities around Bulawayo − marginalised communities, disadvantaged communities − and provide mobile radiology service. My passion is to bridge the inequalities in health service delivery between the haves and the have-nots in rural and urban communities. Everyone deserves equal access to health care," she said.

Lisa Nyamadzawo, an urban planner, said she started her own initiative within the urban planning space after finding office work suffocating.

"I have a project called Green Spaces aiming to revamp public spaces in the city."

Nyamadzawo said the Yali programme was the stepping stone she needed to develop her idea into a sustainable business project which could help solve some of the problems in the city.

Another beneficiary, Tswarelo Mothobe, a filmmaker, challenged institutions to pay attention to youths and help them turn their dreams into reality.